If I had to come up with a snappy tagline for the Ypsilanti Garden Walk, held every year during the Ypsilanti Heritage Festival, I would call it "Real Gardens by Real People." (OK, it might not be that snappy, but unlike a lot of other marketing, it's actually true!) I'm looking forward to this year's walk from noon to 5 p.m. Aug. 21.

The Ypsilanti Garden Walk, which I've attended three times, feels like an old friend. Each year, completely different gardens are featured, and there's always something unique to enjoy.

A friend from the Ypsilanti Garden Club, which sponsors the event, passed on some advance descriptions about the six gardens on the tour this year:

• A woodland garden among established trees and shrubs with natural sandstone hardscaping
• A green (MSU) organic garden with little lawn and lots of veggies, herbs, and flowers
• A well-established backyard garden with many flowers, trees, large hostas, ferns, clematis, and redbuds
• A "non-designed" cottage garden with lots of plants and little grass, started in 2007
• An acre-plus suburban garden with over 50 roses, boxwood hedges, a waterfall, and a woodland garden
• A "living-structure" garden with extensive stone walls and multiple elevations

I've gone on a lot of garden walks in a lot of different cities. I enjoy them all. I can honestly say, however, the Ypsilanti Garden Walk is the most down to earth. All gardens are created by the people living in the houses, not by professional landscapers or designers. Not that I have anything against gardening professionals, having worked as one myself. But I've been on some garden walks where the gardens are more showpieces than living, breathing ecosystems, created more as a home accessory than as a personal expression of the gardener.

I've never finished this walk thinking "Man, it would sure be nice if I could ever afford half the things I've seen." Instead, I'm filled with inspiration and practical ideas I can easily and inexpensively carry out in my own garden.

Plus, the homeowners/gardeners are almost always on hand, and they're a lot of fun!

At the 2006 walk, a gentleman with a desert in his front yard (whose name I unfortunately no longer recall) gave me a prickly pear cactus pad, which has since thrived in my garden. (Prickly pear cactuses are native to Michigan and survive our winters. They just shrivel up and get purple, but that's so they won't burst when water expands and contracts during freeze cycles.)

At the 2008 walk, I was delighted to meet this pet tortoise, but the owners were not giving her up (and fair enough!).

Check out my experience at the 2008 Ypsilanti Garden Walk as a "prequel" for this year's event.

Tickets are $10, available prior to the event at Norton’s Flower’s & Gifts, Mantis Pet Supply, Salt City Antiques, and Apple Annie’s Vintage Clothing & Jim MacDonald Antiques, and on the day of the tour at Towner House.

Monica Milla, the Garden Faerie, is a master gardener volunteer, garden speaker, garden coach, and author of "Fun with Winter Seed Sowing."